"It's a bad time to be a boy in America," opens Sommers in her much needed corrective.

She shows how more and more of our education elites consider traditional boyishness a sort of social pathology. Competitiveness? Individualism? Raw, exuberant energy? All Bad. Cooperation, talking about feelings, and peaceful play -- the traits of the boys' sisters -- are more virtuous.

This, Sommers says, is dangerously coupled with the powerful myth it's the girls who are suffering in today's society. Sommers shows how activist groups like the American Association of University Women (AAUW), and "girl-crisis" advocates like Carol Gilligan (professor of "gender studies" at Harvard) and writers like psychologist Mary Pipher, author of the best-selling girl-crisis book extraordinaire, "Reviving Ophelia," have successfully force-fed the American public the notion that it's girls who are being overlooked and shortchanged in the schools and who suffer from "low self-esteem."

As Gilligan says, "As the river of a girl's life flows into the sea of Western culture, she is in danger of drowning or disappearing."

What baloney, argues Sommers, noting that a range of scholarly research shows no such thing. In fact, as a group girls get better grades in school than boys. They have higher educational aspirations and follow a more rigorous academic program, including prestigious advanced placement courses. Nationwide, those shy overlooked girls outnumber boys on school newspapers, student government, and even in debating clubs, and for years have made up a significant majority of America's college freshman class.

Conversely, "Boys are three times as likely as girls to be enrolled in special education programs and four times as likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder," finds Sommers. They are more likely to be involved in drugs and crime, to kill themselves and to drop-out of school or be expelled.

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Meanwhile, the "gender gap" by which girls trail boys in math and science is closing, but the far greater "gender gap" by which boys trail girls by 1.5 years in reading and math and science
is closing, but the far greater "gender gap" by which boys trail girls by 1.5
years in reading and 3 years in writing isn't getting any narrower.

But focusing on the needs of boys doesn't help the cause of feminist
victimhood much. Yet, Sommers says, while it's not a crisis, the legitimate
problems facing many boys are finally becoming more obvious to parents and
communities, if not educators and our elite. So, Sommers shows, the
"girl-advocates" have come up with an answer to that - "boys need to be more
like girls" you see.

These folks want boys to play "nicely" (no crashing noises or competition,
please) to sit still, and for heavens sake to stop running around with those
pretend guns. So one teacher's guide sponsored by the Education Department
suggested a game of tag where "no one is ever out." Typical of such
"experts," says Sommers, is William Pollack, codirector of the Center for Men
at McLean Hospital at Harvard, who made a big splash in the popular culture
with his best-selling "Real Boys." Pollack, Sommers says, attributes
pathology to even all those normal boys out there. So it's no surprise he
calls for nothing short of changing "the way boys are raised - in our homes,
in our schools and in society."

All of this would be laughable, of course, if this dogma didn't so infuse our
schools and elite culture. And if there weren't a volatile, dangerous
situation that does face many American boys. But there, Sommers says, it's
not about their inherent "maleness." It's about a dearth of moral guidance,
which for boys in particular can have tragic consequences. She notes that
for years our culture has abdicated its task of recognizing the unique
characteristics of boys and of properly and ethically training,
disciplining, directing, and channeling them so that they can safely navigate
from a healthy and normal boyhood into a moral and productive manhood.
(Optimistically, she notes that Great Britain has in recent years responded
to the learning and developmental differences between boys and girls, with
great success.)

As a mother of daughters and a son I agree with Sommers. It would be better
for boys and girls everywhere if we again recognize the simple wisdom of the
ages, that boys need to be civilized -- not
feminized.

JWR contributor Betsy Hart, a frequent commentator on CNN and the Fox News Channel, can be reached by clicking here.